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Trying, Desire, And Desiring to Try

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Frederick Adams
Frederick Adams*
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI48859, USA
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Extract

What is the relationship between trying, desire, and desiring to try? Is it necessary to desire to do something in order to try to do it? Must Dave desire to quit smoking in order to try to quit? I shall defend the view that desiring to do A is necessary for trying to do A. First, Dave needs motivation to quit smoking and motivation comes in the form of desire. So it seems straightforward that when one tries to do something A, one’s desire to do that thing A is one’s motivation. Second, when Dave throws out a pack of cigarettes, this may or may not be part of an attempt to quit smoking. It may be a political protest against R.J.R. Nabisco (Dave may be changing brands, not lifestyles). Dave’s throwing out the cigarettes only counts as part of his attempt to quit smoking, if it is done for the right reason, out of the right motivation. Again, the right motivation seems to be the desire to quit smoking. Thus, the desire to do A appears to play important roles in the attempt to do A. At the very least, it helps to motivate, guide, and constitute the attempt as the attempt to do A. It is because Dave wants to quit smoking that his throwing out his cigarettes counts as part of his attempt to quit smoking, not as a political protest.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1994 , pp. 613 - 626
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1987

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References

1 I would like to thank Ken Aizawa, Myles Brand, Fred Dretske, Gary Fuller, Terry Horgan, Jennifer Hornsby, Hugh McCann, AI Mele, Kirk Ludwig, Robert Stecker, Raimo Tuomela, and the editor and reviewers of this journal for helpful comments and discussion on the ideas contained in this paper. I would also like to thank the Center For the Study of Language and Information of Stanford University for support.

2 See Mele, A. ‘He Wants to Try,’ Analysis 50 (1990) 251-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘He Wants to Try Again: A Rejoinder,’ Analysis 51 (1991) 225-8.

3 I argue for this elsewhere, defending it against the attacks of Bratman, Michael Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reasons (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1987)Google Scholar and others. See my ‘Intention and Intentional Action: The Simple View,’ Mind & Language 1 (1986) 281-301; Review of Bratman’s, Michael Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reasons, Ethics 100 (1989) 198-9Google Scholar; ‘He Doesn’t Really Want to Try,’ Analysis 51 (1991) 109-12; and ‘Trying: You’ve Got to Believe,’ Discipline Filosofiche (forthcoming). Also, I maintain that every intentional doing requires a trying, as does J. Hornsby, Actions (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1980).

4 H. McCann argues for this in ‘Volition and Basic Action,’ The Philosophical Review 83 (1974) 451-73. I think it is as firmly entrenched as that knowing that p requires p’s truth.

5 This is part of the overall view I defend (in my ‘Intention and Intentional Action’ and ‘Trying,’ and in Adams, F. and Mele, A. ‘The Intention/Volition Debate,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22 (1992) 323-38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also, just to be clear, (3) helps to explain (2).

6 For my purposes, it will not be necessary to take a stand on whether intentions can be reduced to belief-desire pairs. Whether they are reducible or not, intending to do A requires relevant beliefs and desires about doing A. If one has a preference for belief-desire pairs, over intentions, to explain the intentionality of trying, that is sufficient for my purposes here. For more on reduction of intention to belief and desire, see Mele, A. Springs of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992)Google Scholar.

7 This view does not require that one have a sequence of intentions in rapid succession to account for the intentionality of actions involving rapid sequences of bodily movements (Mele, Springs of Action, 113-14).

8 I call an action unintentional if not intended, even if done knowingly. Some would disagree (see, for instance, Harman, G. Change in View [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford 1986]Google Scholar). I defend my opposition and discuss cases of double effect in my ‘Intention and Intentional Action.’

9 Tryings need not be successful. Some attempts fail to achieve their intended goals (Adams & Mele, ‘The Intention/Volition Debate’). Tryings on this view consist of components and of one component’s causing another. This is called a ‘component’ view of action (see my ‘Causal Contents,’ in McLaughlin, B. ed., Dretske and His Critics [Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1991] 131-56Google Scholar.

10 I use the Anscombe-Davidson ‘description’ talk here, but could also make the point by referring to properties of the act or attempt intentionally undertaken vs. those unintentionally achieved.

11 I have developed this view in a series of works (see my ‘A Goal-State Theory of Function Attribution,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 9 [1979]493-518; Goal-Directed Systems [Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International 1982]; ‘Intention and Intentional Action’; ‘Feedback About Feedback: Reply to Ehring,’ The Southern Journal of Philosophy 24 [1986]123-31; ‘Tertiary Waywardness Tamed,’ Critica 21[1989]117-25; Review of Michael Brabnan; ‘Causal Contents’; ‘He Doesn’t Really Want to Try’; ‘Trying’; and Adams, F. & Mele, A. ‘The Role of Intention in Intentional Action,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (1989) 511-32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and ‘The Intention/Volition Debate.’

12 For differences in types of feedback and their relevance to intentional action, see my ‘Feedback About Feedback’ and Adams & Mele, ‘The Role of Intention.’ There is also another form of feedback, introspective feedback. When I try to remember a phone number, I know when I have or have not recalled the number. This is feedback, but is not afferent nor efferent feedback.

13 See Brand, M. Intending and Acting (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press/Bradford 1987)Google Scholar; M. Brabnan, Intentions, Plans, and Practical Reasons.

14 I am not saying that an attempt must succeed at what is intended. Rather, an intention to do A may cause bodily (or mental) events in which the attempt to do A consists. However, not just any effect that an intention causes constitutes an attempt. For instance, my intention to do A may cause awareness of my intention to do A, but that causing does not constitute an attempt to do A.

15 Even if this were possible, it would only be made possible by fiddling with the times of the desires and attempts. I may now desire to try to do A tomorrow without now desiring to A. However, I shall deny that one can desire now to try to A without desiring now to A.

16 Searle thought that self-referential intentions would block problems of causal deviance, but they do not (Adams & Mele, ‘The Role of Intention’). There is no other good reason to think that such intentions or desires are self-referential.

17 I take it that Belton’s chess moves would even cease, were he to realize that goal. This too, satiation, is a mark of desire. When one’s desire is knowingly satisfied or satiated, one will normally cease, at least temporarily, seeking that goal.